Emergency exercises must be carried out for all declared dams in NSW. Are you emergency prepared?
Overview: emergency exercises for NSW declared dams
Emergency exercises must be carried out for all declared dams in NSW. They form an important part of risk mitigation and emergency preparedness should a dam failure occur.
The emergency plan for a declared dam must contain details of planned emergency exercises. This includes how they are scheduled, carried out, how recommendations for improvement are recorded and actioned, and how records are kept.
There are two main types of emergency exercises referred to in the Dams Safety legislation. These are:
- Theoretical classroom (or desktop) emergency exercises and
- Practical emergency exercises
Differences between the two types of emergency exercises
| Theoretical classroom (or desktop) exercises | Practical exercises |
|---|---|
| Does not involve mock evacuations. Usually involves all relevant personnel being in the same location (or online) | May involve mock evacuations, drills, staff in the field and ‘command centre’ |
| No physical response is required | Physical response is required |
| May involve the range of emergency services identified in the plan | Involves the range of emergency services identified in the emergency plan |
| Involves discussions about identified equipment and resources | Involves ensuring that equipment and resources are accessible to relevant personnel |
Legislative requirements for emergency exercises
Emergency exercises must be undertaken for all declared dams at least once every three (3) years. They may be a theoretical classroom exercise, or a practical exercise.
For dams with a consequence category of extreme or high, a practical exercise must be undertaken every five (5) years.
Summary of requirements
| Dam consequence category | An emergency exercise at least once every three years (Theoretical classroom or practical) | A practical emergency exercise at least once every five years |
|---|---|---|
| Must be completed by 1 Nov 2024 | Must be completed by 1 Nov 2026 | |
| Very Low, Low, and Significant | Yes | N/A |
| Extreme and High | Yes | Yes |
Watch our online emergency exercise forum
Conducting a dam emergency exercise - 23 June 2023
Download the video of the Dams Safety NSW emergency exercises forum to get tips and insights to help you plan, conduct and review an emergency exercise.
Our panel included representatives from Dams Safety NSW, NSW State Emergency Service, and declared dam owners.
Forum presentations
Emergency exercise legal requirements, Peter Boyd, Manager Governance and Assurance, Dams Safety NSW
Emergency exercise planning, James Didovich, Processing Manager, Tomingley Gold Operations & Olle Wennstrom, Technical Director, GHD
Emergency exercise planning, Damian Bryan, Dam Safety Emergency Management Specialist, WaterNSW
Emergency exercise planning, Craig Ronan, Co-ordinator of Emergency Planning for Western, North-Western and Southern Zones, NSW SES
Emergency exercise tips
The tips below will give you a rough idea of what you need to do to plan, conduct and review your emergency exercise. You should, however, also refer to additional guidance information for each of these steps to help you conduct an emergency exercise.
Before your emergency exercise
- Review your emergency plan
- Decide on the emergency scenario
- Consider what resources are needed
- Consider engaging an external facilitator
- Invite relevant internal and external people well in advance
- Involve decision makers and relief staff
- Make sure all participants are familiar with the dam site
- Consider conducting a theoretical classroom emergency exercise before a practical exercise
- Refer to the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience, Managing Exercises Handbook (AIDR handbook)
During your emergency exercise
- Make it realistic
- Use your Dam Safety Emergency Plan
- Know your legal obligations
- Capture comments as the exercise unfolds
- Document the exercise
- Check your emergency plan’s contact list and notification procedures
- Ring the contact numbers and call the DSNSW incident line
- Allow time for discussion and a debrief
- Emphasise you are testing processes, not people
After your emergency exercise
- Identify necessary improvements
- Assign, action and follow-up identified improvements
- Inform senior management of outcomes
- Keep records from the exercise and actions as required
- Update and distribute updated emergency plan
- Schedule your next exercise
- Ensure that outside agencies (including DSNSW and SES) have the updated emergency plan
- Write a report which including learnings on running the exercise
Resources you'll need for your emergency exercise
- Your dam's Emergency Plan
- Computers, whiteboards and videoconferencing
- Inundation maps and previous reports
- Weather data/media clips
- Scenario running sheets
- Site plan, procedures and process documents
- Dam monitoring materials
- Information about recent and historical events eg. floods
Further guidance
More information on running an emergency exercise for your declared dam can be found in the resources below.
Dam Safety Guideline: Emergency Plans
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience, Managing Exercises Handbook
Frequently asked questions about emergency exercises
Why is it important to conduct emergency exercises?
Emergency exercises can help your organisation, community and stakeholders - like the NSW SES - be better prepared to respond in the unlikely event of a dam failure.
They are an integral part of your risk mitigation and emergency preparedness practices, and help staff and stakeholders know what they need to do, their role and responsibilities.
Emergency exercises are good opportunities to identify any flaws, gaps, out-of-date information and/or mistakes in your emergency plan, to test your systems and communications and equipment, to check if the plan works as intended and to update the plan.
They help raise awareness of your emergency procedures with team members and other stakeholders, and provide your stakeholders a chance to give you feedback. Ultimately, emergency exercising helps to minimise the impact of a failure downstream and is a legislative requirement of declared dam owners in NSW.
How often must emergency exercises be conducted by dam owners with more than one dam?
An emergency exercise (theoretical classroom or practical) must be undertaken for all declared dams at least once every three years. In addition to this, practical emergency exercises must be undertaken for dams with a high or extreme consequence category at least every 5 years.
These requirements apply to each dam, so individual emergency exercises are normally required. However, more than one dam may be included in a single exercise if the same staff carrying out the exercise are involved in the operation of all the dams and the dams have similar characteristics and populations at risk.
Email us at info@damsafety.nsw.gov.au for more specific information.
What penalties apply if emergency exercises are not undertaken?
Dams Safety NSW may apply penalties for non-compliance with the legislation. Penalties may be applied when:
- Records of emergency exercises for the dam are not kept
- Details of emergency exercises are not included in the emergency management plan
- Emergency exercises are not undertaken every three or five years (whichever applies)
Financial penalties for not complying with emergency exercise requirements range from:
- Fines of $500 for individuals, to $3000 for corporations
- Court penalties up to $247 000 for individuals and up to $1.1million for corporations, with additional daily penalties applicable for continuing offences
Do I need to conduct a separate emergency exercise for each of my dams?
The requirement in the Dams Safety Regulation applies to each dam, so individual emergency exercises are normally required. However, more than one dam may be included in a single exercise if the same staff carrying out the exercise are involved in the operation of all the dams, and the dams have similar characteristics and populations at risk.
How do I choose a scenario for my emergency exercise?
The scenario for the emergency exercise should be tailored to your dam. First check if there are any details about scenario design in your emergency plan. Then think about which credible failure mode and what part of your emergency plan you would like to test. It may be an area that hasn’t been tested recently. You don’t need to test every aspect of your plan at the same time.
Detailed scenario information should be recorded as part of the individual emergency exercise documents.
Further guidance can be found in the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience Managing Exercises Handbook.
How do I involve the NSW SES and other external organisations?
When planning an emergency exercise, you should contact the NSW State Emergency Service (NSW SES) and other relevant agencies as early as possible. Each agency and organisation should be identified in your emergency plan. As a declared dam owner, you may already have contacts within NSW Zones and local SES Units to discuss the planned exercise, but it is advised to contact the NSW SES via their community planning email address nswses.communityplanning@ses.nsw.gov.au to ensure a coordinated response.
Declared dam owners must review their dam's emergency plan every year to ensure that all details - including contact names and numbers - are up-to-date. The updated plan must be sent to NSW SES via the community planning email address: nswses.communityplanning@ses.nsw.gov.au. The email will be entered into a correspondence register and allocated to the respective NSW SES Zone for action.
Your updated emergency plan should also be emailed to Dams Safety NSW at info@damsafety.nsw.gov.au.
What templates and forms are available to help?
Meeting and document templates are available in the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience Managing Exercises Handbook. They cover planning, exercise control, event scheduling, and evaluation plans.
Are there any courses to help me plan and conduct an emergency exercise?
The NSW Reconstruction Authority offers fee-free emergency management courses that may help declared dam owners understand the overall approach to emergency management in NSW.
Nationally recognised training in public safety is available from a range of registered training organisations (RTO’s). The training includes the following standalone units that may help dam owners plan and run effective emergency exercises:
Who should I involve in the exercise?
All key personnel should be involved in the dam emergency exercise. This includes staff who are involved in the operation of the dam and who would be involved in an emergency response. For practical emergency exercises, it should also include (as far as reasonably practicable) the range of emergency agencies that are identified in the emergency plan. Start identifying who they are by reading through your emergency plan.
Do I need to ring all the numbers in our emergency plan during the exercise?
Yes. All of the contact numbers in your plan should be tested as part of any emergency exercise. This includes calling the Dams Safety NSW incident number - 0403 681 645. Remember to notify the organisations that you are contacting them as part of an emergency exercise.
What needs to be recorded during an exercise, and how?
During an emergency exercise it is important to record actions, communications, conversations and decisions. This can be done by having nominated observers that are not involved in the emergency exercise.
Records of an emergency exercise that need to be kept include:
- Exercise participants
- Scenario
- Exercise results
- Any required corrective action(s)
Do I need to do a debrief after the emergency exercise?
Yes. A debrief is best held immediately after the exercise to capture participants thoughts on what worked well and what could be improved. It can be difficult to capture all the thoughts immediately, so a survey may also be sent to participants soon after the emergency exercise. Additionally, a more detailed debrief may be held, especially when multiple agencies or organisations were involved, to openly discuss issues, concerns or positive outcomes that were identified.
The emergency evaluation report template from the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience Managing Exercises Handbook may be used to review and document the exercise as part of the emergency exercise debrief.
Is an emergency exercise required if you have been in an actual emergency event?
Yes. A planned emergency exercise must still be undertaken. This is to ensure that the legislative requirements are met and that all aspects of an exercise are included.
What are some recommendations as to how to effectively run a practical exercise?
Follow the guidance included in the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience’s Managing Exercises handbook. Ensure that NSW SES and local emergency services are involved, and that all key information is recorded, including participants, the scenario, exercise results and any required corrective actions/key learnings.
Personnel that would be involved in an emergency need to follow the protocols and procedures that they would carry out during an actual event. A practical exercise may include attending the site for additional surveillance and ensuring that materials or equipment for any remediation work are available.
There is no need to evacuate at-risk people who are off-site. The practical exercise is for people on-site and those involved in the operation of the dam.
Do I need a facilitator to run my emergency exercise?
No. An external facilitator or consultant is not required. A suitably experienced or qualified staff member, preferably in consultation with the NSW SES, can run an effective emergency exercise.
The individual, or team, must be familiar with the site and the site’s dam emergency plan. Depending on the complexity of the exercise, they should have relevant experience in facilitating exercises and/or relevant experience in dealing with actual emergencies. The Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience: Managing Exercises handbook provides information on how to run an emergency exercise.
Do I need to send records or reports related to my emergency exercise to Dams Safety NSW?
No - emergency exercise records do not need to be sent to DSNSW. However, DSNSW may request the records.
Case studies
The case studies below document some of the most important lessons learnt by declared dam owners who have recently conducted an emergency exercise.
Case study 1 - Chichester Dam: Validating plans, processes and capabilities
Whether it’s a new team testing an old plan or an old team validating new capabilities, the emergency exercise process gives you the chance to discover any issues before the unlikely event of a real dam safety emergency.
Hunter Waters’ virtual theoretical desktop exercise on Chichester Dam, upstream of Dungog in the Hunter region, focused on its response to an earthquake scenario. The exercise was facilitated inhouse, and involved dam caretakers, operations staff, their media team, a call centre, dam engineers and dam safety consultants.
The exercise revealed that it wasn't easy to determine which alert level was triggered in the dam emergency plan for earthquake events, as this required judgement based on the amount and type of damage sustained. After the exercise, instructions in the emergency plan were simplified, adding more detailed criteria and definitions for major and minor earthquake damage. This has made informed decision-making much clearer on when to trigger different alert levels.
In the event of increased frequency of dam surveillance, during and immediately after an event, a complete list of all trained staff wasn't readily available. This list was compiled after the exercise and linked to the emergency plan.
The findings of the dam emergency exercise can go beyond the dam itself. During this exercise, staff identified that the overarching corporate emergency plan only referred to earthquake impact to the dam and a potential dam break. It has been upgraded to include potential impacts on infrastructure such as bridges and roads.
Case study 2 - Rocky Creek Dam: Identifying potential delays and clarifying communications roles
Communicating clear, consistent information to the local community is never more important than during an emergency. Rous County Council’s theoretical classroom exercise on Rocky Creek Dam, upstream of Lismore in the Northern Rivers region, was facilitated by a consultant who was familiar with their dams. Council staff have had plenty of real-life experience with dam emergencies during flood situations. The less well-known earthquake scenario really challenged Council staff, and the NSW SES, as they worked through the actions in their dam emergency plans.
Conducting the emergency exercise allowed Council to clarify the NSW SES’s role in communication of emergency events. This included Council linking directly to NSW SES media releases and updates online which ensured information to the community was consistent.
In the dam emergency plan, an amber alert was not triggered after an earthquake until a site inspection has been completed. It takes about an hour for trained personnel to reach Council dams and another hour, after amber alert notification, for NSW SES to release any warning notifications. If an earthquake put the dam at risk of failure, the combined delay could result in it taking more than two hours to notify downstream stakeholders of an issue. SES and Council are working together to amend the trigger points for alerting NSW SES in the case of an earthquake and have signed up with GeoSciences Australia to receive earthquake alerts.
Case study 3 - Bamarang Dam: Designing an emergency scenario
Designing a risk-informed scenario specific to each individual dam is an important first step towards an effective emergency exercise. Shoalhaven Water’s emergency exercise on Bamarang Dam, west of Nowra in the South Coast region, focussed on an extended extreme weather event leading to overtopping of the dam wall. The scenario was written and facilitated by Council staff. Planning for the emergency exercise took several days and was developed around previous theoretical classroom exercises. The scenario was timed for the early hours of the morning when staff would not be located at the nearby water treatment plant.
The emergency exercise was held on the day when emergency management team managers met. This increased the likelihood of other agencies, such as LEMO (Local Emergency Management Officer), NSW Police, NSW Fire and Rescue and NSW State Emergency Service (NSW SES), being able to participate. Despite the SES not being able to attend the emergency exercise, due to state-wide flood events, the exercise went ahead with several issues identified for updating the dam emergency plan and as part of planning for future emergency exercises.